The XO-1.75 will sport a processor based on the ARM architecture unlike its predecessor that features an x86 processor from VIA. This shift necessitates software changes as the current version of OLPC's favorite Linux distribution, Fedora, is still missing an ARM port. Chris Ball, lead software engineer for OLPC, said in an e-mail statement that future OLPC machines will continue to use Fedora as their main Linux distribution.

"We need to rebuild each of the thousands of Fedora packages for Arm from their Fedora 13 versions, so that includes everything from the kernel and drivers up through all of the other packages, including Sugar,” Ball said.

Yes, there is more to Linux than Ubuntu. As you are probably aware, there are many different types of Linux to choose from, even though not all get the attention they deserve. These are organized into separate distributions, (distros) and each one is different. If you've read our previous Beginner's Guide to Linux, you are already familiar with the advice we gave about choosing the right distro for your needs. This guide will shed more light on some of the more common distributions in use today and will cover the distinct advantages or disadvantages of each.

For the purpose of comparison, we personally tested each distro and critiqued it based on several distinct areas: appearance, ease of use, system administration, software/package management, security, and the level of support available for the distro. We graded each factor on a scale of zero to five: 0 – Abysmal or non-existent; 1– Very bad; 2 – Needs improvement; 3 – Average; 4 – Good; and 5 – Excellent. We hope that this guide will give you a better understanding of the current state of Linux, so you can make an informed decision about choosing the right Distro without just defaulting to Ubuntu (which we've included in this roundup)

Fedora fans looking to take a sneak peek at the open-source Linux distro's next release can now download the Fedora 11 (Leonidas) beta, which includes new security, desktop, and developer features. This may also serve as an indication of where Red Hat could take its enterprise Linux distribution, though not all features of Fedora end up in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

According to the release notes, changes in Fedora 11 include a new volume control in GNOME with a simplified interface, guest user or kiosk mode now defaults in the Desktop Live CD, enhanced DNS security extensions, ext4 file system is now the default, support for the Btrfs file system, virtualization improvements, and a whole bunch more.

Fedora 11 is expected to be available in final form by the end of May.